Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Miss Information is annoyed by a death threat

Ok. Miss Information is feeling a bit under the weather. She thinks it might be the flu. But it's Tuesday a day when the library is notoriously understaffed and frankly she isn't that sick. She isn't herself, but other than being a little shaky, a tiny bit headachy and slightly dizzy, it isn't that bad.

Also it's a full moon. Ummmm...and there is a possibility that there is some PMS happening. In retrospect she should have stayed home. But she didn't.

So when a couple of the customers complained about noisy card playing in the browsing collection, she didn't have the sense to disengage and report it to the person in charge. Instead she went to the card players herself. She was as nice as possible, but told them to move their little Texas Hold 'em game to the casino floor of the library. Really, it's the teen area, but card playing is allowed there.

They argued. They've always been able to play here. (This is a lie, but Miss Information ignored it.) It's because they're brown, isn't it? They said they weren't leaving until they finished their hand. Miss Information asked them to deal her in. If they weren't leaving, she wasn't leaving either.

Since they wouldn't include her in the game, becoming, in fact, downright hostile at the suggestion, she decided to step away and find some assistance. There really wasn't anyone. So she went back, by now a little calmer. The kids were leaving.

She approached them more peacefully this time. She assured them they didn't have to leave, just move their game. Again they accused her of racism. This made her cranky. She didn't think to mention that the man who complained about their game was also brown. Instead she said something very stupid. She told them they were right. Bad mistake.

As one of them was leaving he uttered a threat. "I'm a kill you, bitch," were his exact words. Miss Information did not interpret this as a serious threat, but still cried for a while in the staff bathroom, mostly because she handled the situation so badly.

Later she heard that some boys, most likely her new card-playing-death-threat-uttering pals were threatened themselves on the way back to school. Good. Bastards.

Miss Information would like to assure everyone that at the time of this post she is still alive and still not a racist. She is occasionally a bitch, though, so they got that part right.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Miss Information is annoyed by academia

Well, it's September finally and the library is a pretty dull place with all the kids back at school. It almost seems like an actual real life library.

Miss Information is back at school, too. Traumatised by a summer history course she vowed to stay away from that discipline and signed up for a gender studies course instead. She was happy. Then she got the course outline. It's a gender course all right. Gender in the Renaissance. She should really read those course descriptions before she registers.

She's also taking a literature course which sounded dull (from the name, obviously she didn't read the course description for that one either). However, it could turn out to be interesting, mainly because the professor is a giant pinata of crazy. She isn't just insane. She's fucking insane.

During the first lecture she made an occasional attempt at teaching, drawing baffling mind maps on the board, but frequently wandered off topic and off planet. Her first husband was an artist. Her second husband was messy. She's had mental health issues. Tina Turner is cool. Janis Joplin is responsible for the declining health of society. Don't ask.

The professor laughed, cackled really, after everything she said. The class laughed too, but it was more of a "let's stay on the good side of the crazy lady" kind of laughter.

She sang--the Eensy Weensy Spider, which was actually related to the course, O Susannah, which wasn't and What's Love Got to Do With It, presumably to demonstrate her fondness for Tina Turner.

Fortunately there is no exam in this course but Miss Information dutifully took notes on everything, mainly because she didn't want to make eye contact. It's going to be a long semester.